Zaheer's Lament
by InfiniteFandom17
Summary: Zaheer looks back on his life with regret. The idea came from the famous quote from the movie Legend: "The dreams of youth are the regrets of maturity." Even a hard case like Zaheer must eventually reflect upon the life he has led.


They had limited his movements, even in the Spirit World. He had but perhaps a hundred yards from the spirit grove where he often manifested before an invisible barrier stopped his passage. It didn't matter; this was the spot where his spirit called home, where he could feel the warmth of the sun on his bare scalp, feel the ghost breeze on his clean-shaven cheeks.

Here he was free.

The mighty oak tree was his anchor in this world where he spent nearly all his time in meditation and contemplation. During the first leg of his incarceration, before his bending abilities had appeared, he had counted the days, even the very hours and minutes, but now, here in this place, time passed like running water. He had only a vague idea of how long it had been since his second imprisonment had begun, of how long since…since…

A wave of remembered pain washed over him like a tsunami. The spiritual landscape around him darkened as a reflection. A cold wind picked up, sending chills up and down his spine.

 _Say her name_ , he told himself. _You must say it. Accept it._

 _P'Li._

He had accepted everything that had happened to him. His defeat, his imprisonment, his many failures, but her loss was another matter. She had been his last earthly attachment, and yet the ties that bound them were not quite so easily severed.

Had her spirit crossed over? If it had, would it still be blocked from him? When he died, would his spirit find hers in the beyond?

He might have contemplated those things for months, but a vibration resonated through him, something from his earthly body. He felt it mostly in his wrists and ankles, which could mean only one thing.

He had a visitor.

Zaheer closed his eyes and willed himself back into the mortal realm, back into his physical body. Now he could feel a thick mane of tangled grey hair falling down into his face to meet his long beard, feel the cold metal chains which bound him to a metal circle in the middle of the chamber. He was still in the lotus position, though he hovered some six feet off the ground.

The strange temple that entombed him was deep below ground and lit by glowing crystals which cast the whole room in a surreal green. His eyes looked through the grey strands to see the outer door open.

A tall man stood there, both stern and serene. Around his shoulders flowed the red cloak of an Airbending Master that seemed almost black in the light. The man's eyes burned as he came to a stop right where the Avatar had stood however long ago that had been. He looked much the same as the last time Zaheer had seen him, save for perhaps a think vein of silver that now crept through the man's pointed beard.

"Master Tenzin," Zaheer said and his voice sounded rusty and weak. "I'm honored. If they had told me you were coming, I would have gotten dressed for the occasion." He laughed, though it came out more like a grunt. The ragged brown pants and tunic were the only earthly garments he had now.

Tenzin's disgust was at odds with his aura of calm. Both competed across the long planes of the man's face for moments. It looked as though he were about to say something caustic, but had swallowed his words instead.

"I know this isn't a social call," Zaheer continued. "You want something. And you must want it pretty badly to come all this way. Well, are you going to keep me in suspense?"

Tenzin's drooping beard twitched. "You have a rare gift. You are perhaps the most naturally gifted airbender I have ever encountered, and have even achieved feats that not even Avatar Aang could have matched. You-"

Zaheer cut him off. "I certainly gave you a run for your money at the fortress. Had we not been interrupted, I might have finished the job."

Tenzin narrowed his eyes dangerously, but like a wave on the ocean it disappeared. "That's precisely my point. I studied decades under Avatar Aang to perfect my technique, but you were very nearly my match after your bending awakened in you. It was as though you were born to it. Not even Avatar Korra picked up airbending so easily. Like it or-"

He interrupted again. "And how is Korra these days? Doing well, I hope?"

"Spare me your pretensions," Tenzin snapped. "She is far from here, and safe from you," he said gesturing to his side in a whirl of dark crimson. "You will never see her ever again, not in this lifetime or the next."

"Your mother told me much the same thing in the spirit world, with a rope of water wrapped around my throat," Zaheer said. "Still, I can see what your father saw in her."

"My—" Tenzin sputtered, and his faced hardened. "I see that time in prison has done little for your manners. I did not come here for your barbed words, criminal. My interest in you is _singular_."

"Speak then," said. "Tell me, what can this humble servant do for you?" It was almost too easy to tweak the man, but visitors were a rarity. He had put the man through his paces already. Now was the time for consideration.

"Despite your past crimes, you are part of the Air Nation," Tenzin began. "You have a responsibility to pass on what you've learned to future generations of airbenders. You wanted the power to affect change in the world? Now you have it."

"Ah, I should have known," Zaheer said. "You want the power of flight. And why should I wish to empower the nation? Remember, I came very near to wiping it out once."

"I remember," Tenzin said sourly. "During your time here, air transport has gone far beyond balloons and zeppelins. Future Enterprises now has planes capable of shuttling citizens almost anywhere in the world in great numbers, but the technology still has its faults. Our numbers are still too few, but true flight could potentially save many lives if it can be taught to other airbenders."

"So, you are here to… what? Appeal to my humanity?" Zaheer replied. "Let me ask you, do you know what I felt when I suffocated the life out of the Earth Queen?" He paused for effect, knowing it was rhetorical.

" _Nothing_." Zaheer said, and his voice cracked like a whip. "She feasted and lorded over her subjects while the poor starved. But as horrible as she was, I felt no satisfaction in ending her. Her death was necessary. I would have killed you, your family, and the entirety of the Northern Air Temple to achieve my goals, and likewise have felt nothing. Lives were not my concern."

"I see it was foolish to come here," Tenzin said, turning on his heel with dramatic swirl of his cloak. "Enjoy the rest of what life you have left."

Zaheer watched him go, heard the rumble of the outer doors. The Air Master was serious. Others might come for the same purpose, but never this man again. _This may be your one chance_ , he said to himself. _Will you see it wasted?_

"Wait…"

Tenzin looked over his shoulder, but remained where he stood.

"I said that lives 'were' not my concern. Would it surprise you to learn that lives are very much my concern now?"

Tenzin stepped back towards him, but all the lines of his face were sculpted downward. "I've never known you to show even slightest remorse over your actions. Why should I believe you now?"

"Believe me, or don't," Zaheer said. "I'm in no position to convince you either way. But you should know that I am no longer a threat to you, your family, or the Avatar. If you recall, I even helped her when she came to visit those years ago."

"Yes you were very helpful," Tenzin shot back, with particular acid on the word _helpful._ "When it suits your purposes."

"That's true," Zaheer admitted, but then his tone mellowed. "But consider this: I have been in prison now for half of my life. The first thirteen years of my imprisonment taught me nothing, as I longed only to be free and to see my vision realized. But for these past years, escape has not been my goal. Even if I did get out of this place, the Red Lotus is finished. Only I remain. I led my friends to their deaths, including the woman I loved. In the light of that, these years of contemplation have given me something I lacked before."

"And what is that?" Tenzin asked.

"Perspective," Zaheer said. "I see the man I was through the lens of who I am now. Those things that once filled my veins with fire when I was a younger man no longer carry the same importance that they once did. Before I never once questioned my actions; I believed that my every act was absolutely necessary. My moment of pause came on the eve of my greatest victory."

"Meaning what, exactly?" Tenzin said. "I warn you that, Zaheer, I have no patience for your games."

Zaheer closed his eyes, imagining the scene as he described it: "I had the Avatar in chains, suspended by her wrists and ankles above the lava pit. She was terrified, but it didn't matter. I saw the Avatar as the ultimate obstacle to the freedom I yearned for so much, so it had to be removed. I had no issue with Korra herself; I did not wish her to suffer, only to end. She resisted going into the Avatar state, she fought on, though in excruciating pain, longer than anyone I could have imagined."

Zaheer opened his eyes to see Tenzin's harsh scowl. "She showed me that I wasn't simply ending the Avatar, but torturing a seventeen-year-old girl who had done me no wrong except to be the reincarnation of your father. When she defeated me, I admit I felt relief. Only a seed at the time, a kernel of it, but it grew as I meditated upon it."

Tenzin's tone softened. "And did you achievement enlightenment?"

"Of a sort," Zaheer replied. "True freedom, the kind I wanted so desperately, flows from life. Without life, freedom is meaningless. I had only heard stories of Korra before my escape. Had I known the full story, I would have realized that she saved the life of every man, woman, and child during the Harmonic Convergence, including my own. Had I succeeded in plans when she was a child, who would have staved off Vaatu? Her confrontation in Republic Bay ensured life, and thus the possibility of freedom. Perhaps the world owes its existence to Sokka's boomerang, after all," he said, tracing the scar that bisected his left eyebrow.

"I had been more than willing to go through with my plan when she was a small child," he continued, "heedless of the consequences. And when she came to me, unable to reach the Spirit World, I helped her. My actions had cost the world its Avatar for years, and look what happened: the Earth Kingdom in shambles, and a cruel dictator rising to fill the vacuum I created. Inevitably, I pondered what would happen the next time the world is under dire threat. What then? The Avatar must always be there to contend with those things that mortal men cannot. And in that, I realized the extent of my folly."

At this, a shadow of pain crossed Zaheer's face and his jaw clenched. His heart pounded in his chest like a heavy stone.

"Then perhaps you are not so lost as I believed," Tenzin said.

Zaheer took a deep breath, relishing the feeling of air in his lungs, then let it out slowly. He met Tenzin's gaze.

"Make no mistake, I will always believe that governments are the biggest obstacle to personal freedom. No one will convince me otherwise," Zaheer said. "But never again will I take a life in the name of freedom. _I cannot_."

Zaheer paused, and Tenzin respected that silence.

"You came here seeking flight. I would not have it if it were not for the Avatar. I will attempt to teach it to you, but under two conditions."

Tenzin again frowned. "Release is out of the question. You must know that."

"You misunderstand. I have resolved myself to living my last day in this room."

Tenzin tilted his head to the side, "What then?"

"Once a month I would like a haircut and shave, and a fresh set of clothes. If I am to spend more time in the earthly realm teaching you, I don't wish to wallow in my own stench."

"That seems acceptable, provided proper safeguards are put in place," Tenzin said with a nod. "And your second?"

"I want you to take a message to the Avatar. Will you do that?"

Tenzin nodded that he would.

"Tell her that I am sorry for the misery I have caused her," Zaheer began. "Tell her I don't ask for her forgiveness, for there can be none, but that each life which may be saved because of my teaching is a continued apology to her. Tell her to go and find love, a love that burns strong enough to define her. Tell her to walk always in the ways of truth, and not to let anyone divert her from that path. Finally, tell her that she deserves a long life, full of peace and happiness."

Zaheer bowed his head. "Do this, and all that I know is yours."

"I will tell her," Tenzin replied. "You have my word."

"Very well. Return here in one week from today, and we will begin."

Tenzin nodded and turned away in a trail of shadowed red. The doors rumbled open at his signal and shut with a dull boom. Zaheer floated there alone, the slight jingle of his thick chains his only companion.

 _This is my final gift to the world_ , he thought. _I cannot change the past, but maybe – just maybe – I may leave it a little better than I found it._

 _Perhaps that will be enough._


End file.
